Free Web NovelChapter 235: You Wear His Face
The nine-tailed fox’s voice carried a painful disbelief. "Yan’er?"
Su Ningyan blinked slowly, tilting his head to the side.
There was no shock on his face. Only curiosity.
The crimson-haired fox before him was breathtakingly beautiful beneath the moonlight, nine magnificent tails swaying behind him like living flames, crimson robes edged with white fur brushing against the rooftops, fox ears twitching faintly atop his head. His red-gold eyes, however....Those eyes looked at Ningyan as though the heavens themselves had returned him.
And Ningyan did not understand why.
He descended lightly from the rooftop, black robes fluttering behind him as he approached the fox with measured steps.
The closer he came, the more the fox’s expression fractured with disbelief, pain, hope.
Ningyan found it strangely amusing.
"I do not believe we are close enough for you to call me that," His violet gaze drifted briefly toward the still-beating heart discarded upon the ground before returning to the fox.
The fox took a slow step toward him.
Ningyan immediately stepped back, eyes narrowing toward the blood staining the beast’s fingers. "How do you know my name?"
The fox froze.
Then, in a low voice filled with something dangerously fragile, he asked, "You do not recognize me?"
The question instantly soured Ningyan’s mood.
Again.
Again this absurdity.
Again these beasts who looked at him as though they had known him all their lives while he remembered nothing of them.
His expression darkened.
Before he could respond, the fox suddenly appeared directly before him.
He was too fast. Too close.
Their faces were only inches apart.
Ningyan’s breath caught without warning.
The fox’s red-gold eyes widened as though seeing something precious beyond belief. Slowly, carefully, he lifted a trembling hand and touched the side of Ningyan’s face.
The instant skin met skin, a strange feeling rushed through Ningyan’s body.
His eyes instantly bled into crimson-black as a monstrous wave of demonic aura erupted from him with murderous intent.
The earth shattered beneath the pressure.
The nine tailed fox immediately leapt backward, narrowly avoiding the razor-sharp slash of power that tore through the air where he had stood moments before.
The killing intent behind it was absolute.
Ningyan’s chest rose sharply.
His hand flew to the place the fox had touched.
That single touch had ignited something inside him. Something deep within his bones that made his entire body scream in alarm.
But not anger. Not entirely. It felt more dangerous than anger and that terrified him.
"How dare you touch me?" Ningyan hissed.
His crimson-black eyes glowed monstrously beneath the moonlight as demonic mist curled around him.
The fox stared at him silently.
Even after nearly being killed, he did not attack back.
He only looked at Ningyan with an expression so full of grief that it made Ningyan irrationally irritated.
Ningyan abruptly turned away.
But in the next instant, the fox appeared before him again.
This time, he seized Ningyan’s wrist.
Ningyan’s eyes widened sharply. "What are you doing?"
The fox’s grip tightened and a wild smile slowly spread across his lips, sharp fangs revealing themselves beneath the moonlight.
But there was nothing joyful about that smile. Only fury and heartbreak.
"You are wearing his face," the fox whispered.
His red-gold eyes blazed violently. "You cannot be him."
The smile widened further, almost unhinged now. "Emitting such demonic aura... becoming this thing..."
His voice cracked. "You are the Phoenix Beast King who has brought calamity upon the realms—"
His gaze locked onto Ningyan’s face with devastating rage. "—and yet you wear his face."
Then he laughed. A harsh, broken sound filled with wrath and despair.
Ningyan went still beneath the sheer hatred burning within those eyes.
For the first time since awakening, something cold crawled down his spine.
What... What was this fox talking about?
Whose face was he wearing?
"What nonsense are you spouting?" His violet eyes darkened, cold fury rippling beneath them. "First, you call me as though I belong to you... and now you claim I wear another’s face. Tell me. Who are you speaking of?"
The instant the words left his lips, he struck.
Black-red demonic qi exploded from his palm like a raging tide, tearing through the night as it rushed toward the nine-tailed fox with murderous force. Yet Yan Wuhen merely lifted a hand.
A brilliant red-gold barrier bloomed before him.
The attack shattered against it.
The next breath, the entire street erupted into chaos.
The two figures vanished and reappeared amidst crashing spiritual waves, their powers colliding so violently that rooftops trembled and lanterns burst apart in showers of sparks. Ningyan’s white hair whipped wildly behind him as he attacked again and again, each strike sharper than the last, while his gaze repeatedly caught on those nine crimson tails swaying through the darkness like living flames.
They were beautiful. Dangerous. Familiar.
The thought irritated him instantly.
Ningyan narrowed his eyes and unleashed another slash of demonic aura, but Yan Wuhen dissolved through it like smoke before suddenly appearing above him.
Behind him, a colossal translucent nine-tailed fox manifested in the heavens, its red-gold eyes blazing as it lunged straight toward Ningyan.
Ningyan’s expression finally shifted.
A divine beast god. ƒrēewebnovel.com
He knew it.
This fox was not merely a divine beast but one standing at the very peak. A divine beast god.
And yet... He was hiding it. Not suppressing his cultivation, but concealing it behind layers of restraint as though afraid of revealing his true strength.
Before the phantom fox could descend completely, black-red mist exploded around Ningyan’s body.
Space distorted.
In the blink of an eye, he vanished from the battlefield entirely.
Yan Wuhen stood frozen, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Around him, his tails whipped through the air in a restless, frantic blur.
"It can’t... it can’t be him," he whispered, pressing a trembling palm against his face, not to ground his scattering spiritual energy, but simply trying to force his mind to process the reality of what had just unfolded.
That face. Those words. That voice. Even the unforgettable warmth of his skin... Yan Wuhen could still feel it lingering in the air.
Every instinct screamed that it wasn’t a demonic illusion or an imposter. He knew that. He knew it with absolute, terrifying certainty.
He simply didn’t want to believe it.
